Subject: Re: The days of (thesis) reckoning...
>
> << I remember being told in the early/mid 70's the attitude at Cornell

Well, even after familiar memories brought back by all the recent grief
about juries and competition, I feel
compelled to interject another type of student-judging experience, not out
of pride or angst but out of continued amazement at the events.

At Cornell, we had to take Fine Arts classes and most students in my 60's
Arch. class thought it was all a joke because only "girls" were in Fine
Arts.   But we had some fine teachers there, and Norman Daly who taught
sculpture was a gem.   During the "Presentation" of our final works for his
class, he had us line up our sculptures on a long window sill and then
he went down the line commenting on each piece, one by one, to the public
exposure of each of the sensitively prideful competitive students.   Mine
was somewhere in the middle, and when he got to it he hesitated a moment and
then skipped it by, going straight on the next piece and continuing his
comments in order from there.   My friends all felt my discomfort at the
snub and a minor murmur began to rumble through the group about what it
meant for me to fail the class.   At the end of the line of projects and
comments, he stopped, turned back to my little effort and said "You might
have noticed (an understatement, considering the feeling in the group) that
I said nothing about this piece. Well, it is a perfectly professional piece
of work and there really is nothing I can say to improve it."

I was too young to know how to handle the comment, and my "Advisor" was one
who had weekly tea parties with Fine Arts girls in his office and little
time to help sort out my life, so .............soon after, when I received a
rare First First Mention for an architectural project and had the Design
Office downstairs send a memo to the jury demanding that they had to
reconvene and lower my grade because I was not supposed to receive 1st 1st
Mentions,........ I went to work with Soleri at Neil Mitchell's advice.

Today I sometimes wonder "what if ?", but it has been one hell of a life.
Now I ride a Penny Farthing and feel like Old Father William, doing it again
and again.

cp in bc